Pixels and Penchants
by Bassair
Summary: When an artefact zaps them, Claudia and Pete find themselves fighting their way through not just one video game, struggling to survive in a world of pixels and bonding in the process.  Claudia/Pete primary and some Myka/H.G.
1. Chapter 1

**Name:** Pixels and Penchants  
><strong>Rating:<strong> It will probably hit M eventually.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Warehouse 13  
><strong>PairingCharacters: **Pete/Claudia, Myka/H.G., Artie, Leena.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>When an artefact hunt results in Claudia being given a surprise trinket in exchange for her help with a teenage boy's computer, she and Pete find themselves fighting their way through not just one video game, struggling to survive in a world of pixels and bonding in the process.  
><strong>Author's Note: <strong>I'm exploiting my extensive gaming knowledge and love of games to write this, so there will be quite a few references – some obscure and some not – but you don't, by any stretch of the imagination, need to know the games to read the fic. Onwards!

_**One**_

Claudia skids down the road and to a halt at the end, all but smacking into a lamppost. She has her Farnsworth out in seconds and as soon as Pete's face appears on the screen she shouts, "I lost him!"

"Double back, meet me at the car," Pete's voice replies. He isn't looking into the Farnsworth, just holding it instead and shouting towards Claudia's voice. "He can't have gotten far!"

Claudia leans against the lamppost and breathes deeply. If there's one thing she hates about this job, it's all the running around. Sure, it's fun and exciting, but it leaves her with a stitch and sweaty armpits and all the uncomfortable side effects of running in circles for an hour escaping a snowman who's trying to eat her face. Or was that Pete's face? All the artefact hunts are all blurring together.

She trudges back to the car, tired. She's not unfit by a long chalk, but there's fit and then there's able to run a marathon a day for a week and that's what this week has been like. She's looking forward to getting back to Leena's, sinking into a hot, hot bath and letting all her aches and pains drain down the plughole.

"Where's Wilson?"

Claudia makes a vague gesture as she climbs into the car next to Myka, who had spoken. "I lost him."

Myka sighs. "Ugh," she says. Myka moves to get out of the car but Claudia puts a hand on her arm.

"Pete's on it."

They turn their heads in time to see Pete slam to the ground on top of the middle aged guy whose cat is currently wearing the artefact they're after.

"Ha!" Pete exclaims, straddling the guy's back. He looks at Claudia, who climbs out of the car and goes to join him.

"You don't have to enjoy it so much," Myka comments as she climbs out of the other side. Pete gives her a look and holds the guy down as Claudia drops to a crouch in front of him.

"Okay, dude," she says, "where's the moggy?"

The guy looks like he's about to cry so Claudia sighs. "Look, dude, we're not gonna hurt Scruffs. We're just gonna... talk to her."

Pete gives her a look that clearly reads WTF so she quickly adds, "All we want is her collar!"

The guy nods, tearing up a bit and Pete clambers off his back. "She's at my sister's," Wilson says, sitting up. "I was scared you'd hurt her."

"We're not going to hurt her," says Myka. "Give us the address."

* * *

><p>Wilson's sister lives in a small two-bedroom house at the edge of town and by the time they get there, Pete is muttering that his job is <em>over<em>. He pinned the guy, he should be allowed to go home. Myka fixes him with a steely glare and he trails after them into the house, against his wishes.

"Scruffs?" says Maggie Wilson, Wilson's sister. "Oh, yes. I think she's upstairs..." She looks at her brother, who nods that this is okay, and Pete, Myka and Claudia make their way quietly upstairs and into her son's bedroom.

Kyle, the boy in question, is sitting at his desk playing video games on his computer. He's about thirteen and as soon as the strangers come into his room he turns the monitor off and goes bright red. Claudia eyes him, because she's pretty sure she saw a naked blue chick on the screen.

The cat, Scruffs, is sitting on his pillow, looking majestic. Her black fur is shiny and sleek and the gold collar around her neck glints under the light of Kyle's ceiling lamp.

"Okay..." Pete approaches the cat slowly, dropping to a crouch. "C'mere, you."

The cat's hackles rise and her green eyes pierce his. "I am the embodiment of Bastet." The words are coming from the cat, but she's not speaking them.

"Oh, crap," says Pete.

The cat launches itself at him and he hits the floor when it lands on his chest. "Pete!" shouts Claudia. She pulls her tesla out and aims it at the cat, but she's hesitant to shoot because it'll shock Pete too. Instead, she tosses the weapon at Myka and runs forward to shove the cat from Pete's chest.

The cat dislodges, taken by surprise, and leaps up to land on the desk next to Kyle. Myka shoots at it and misses, instead hitting the tower of Kyle's computer on the shelf above his desk.

Everything fries and it goes off. The cat hits the floor and leaps at Myka.

Myka flails as Bastet hits her square in the face, scratching down her cheek. Pete grabs his own tesla and shoots, hitting the cat, which falls to the floor, twitching and then sinks into unconsciousness.

Claudia stares at it like it's about to attack again, then crawls forward and pulls the collar off from around its neck. Its hackles lower and its breathing evens out, then it comes around and runs away out of the room.

She tosses the collar at Myka, who catches it with one hand while she touches her face gingerly with the other.

"You better get that checked out," says Claudia, leaning against the foot of Kyle's bed, next to Pete who's still lying on the floor.

"You fried my computer!" shouts Kyle.

Claudia stares at him. "Priorities!" she exclaims, then she sighs. "Don't worry. I'll spring for the repairs."

"Nah, you can fix it for him, right, Claud?" says Pete. "Claud's a whiz at computers."

Claudia gapes at him. What the hell happened to that lovely soak in the bath she had planned? "Sure," she says, smiling serenely, "but only when I have my trusty sidekick." She claps him on the shoulder and his face falls.

Ha. Checkmate.

"Really?" Kyle looks really excited so Claudia gives up on her plotting to get out of this. "Here." He holds a trinket out towards Claudia. "I'll give you this if you repair my computer!"

Claudia takes the trinket and eyes it. It's just a desk ornament. "I'm good, kid, thanks," she says, but Kyle refuses to take it back so she sighs, puts it in her pocket and ignores the look Pete is giving her, the one that says, "Haha, this kid has a crush on you."

* * *

><p>Three hours later the sun is going down, Myka is getting stitches at the hospital and Claudia is trying to fix Kyle's computer while standing awkwardly on the desk because she refused to unplug everything, bring the tower down, plug it all back in and <em>then<em> work on it, insisting it would only take a few minutes to repair.

Kyle is asleep on his bed instead of helping.

"Pass me the screwdriver," says Claudia and Pete wakes up from where he was asleep on the desk.

"Which one?"

Claudia glares at him. "I don't know, Pete? Maybe the one I've asked for _six times_ so far?"

"I was asleep..."

She grits her teeth. "Phillip's head."

He hands her a screwdriver and she unscrews part of the motherboard, still trying to work out which bits got fried. She'd first thought it was the power supply, but now she's not so sure.

"How long is this going to take?" Pete says, with a sigh.

Claudia glares at him. "You're the one who volunteered me for this." She moves some things around, tweaks them in the way only she can and says, "Okay turn it on."

Pete flicks the switch on the mains socket behind the desk and Claudia presses the button on the front of the tower. It splutters, stutters and then powers back down.

"Damn it," she mutters. "It's completely fried."

"If anyone can fix it it's you, Claud," says Pete, yawning, which just serves to make Claudia yawn right back at him.

She pokes some parts of the computer, moodily. "You know, you're useless around this stuff," she says. "I should have asked Myka to help. At least she knows which screwdriver I want."

Pete rolls his eyes as she reaches for a wire inside the case. "I bet she does," he says.

"Now what is _that_ supposed to mean?" Claudia says, and turns around. Her hand slips, she hits a live wire and an electric shock slices through her.

She jerks and flails and Pete shouts, "Claudia!" and dives forward to grab her by the back of the jeans to pull her away from the computer.

The shock flows straight through her and into him, but instead of releasing her he grips on harder even as everything goes white around them and they disappear in a zap of electricity.

The computer turns on and prompts for a password.

Kyle yawns and sits up. "Oh, cool, she fixed it!" he exclaims, and rushes across.

He doesn't even notice the singe on the carpet.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **The game in this chapter is Mass Effect – specifically Mass Effect 2.

"You don't grab someone who's having an electric shock!" is the first thing Claudia exclaims upon regaining consciousness and, honestly, Pete thinks that's a bad reaction, considering they're standing in the middle of nothing.

Literally... nothing.

Everything is black and nothing and they're somehow standing on nothing. He's not sure how this works.

She thwaps him on the chest. "You turn off the power! You don't _touch someone being electrocuted_!"

"Okay, okay, _ow_," Pete says, rubbing his chest. "I just reacted! I didn't think! You were in trouble, I grabbed!"

She huffs a little and drops her arms. "I'll let you off this time," she says. She looks around. "Where _are_ we? Did we die? Oh, god, we died, didn't we?"

"I don't think we're dead," says Pete. "I think if we were dead that punch wouldn't have hurt so much." He's still rubbing his chest because good golly she can hit hard. He reaches out with his hand, testing his surroundings. "There's just... nothing."

Claudia looks down at her feet. "What are we _standing_ on?"

Pete crouches, wafts his hand below him. "That's just freaky," he says, when his hand slides straight through the not-floor. Whatever they're standing on... they're not. It makes his head spin so he stops thinking about it.

He does that for a lot of things.

The floor vibrates slightly under their feet and Claudia steps closer to Pete, grabbing his arm. "I don't like this very much," she comments, off-handedly.

The black of the nothing surrounding them lightens into grey and Pete says, "Nope, definitely don't like this."

They stumble when the floor turns into a set of stairs and slip down to flop into a seated position on the steps as a room appears around them. It's a not particularly well lit room, with a big double bed in front of a window through which stars are visible and when Pete turns around he can see a fish tank full of dead fish behind him.

"Oh," he says.

Claudia is gaping at the room.

"What?" he says, when he sees her expression.

"We're..." She scrambles to her feet. "Oh, _no_."

"What?" he says again.

"No, no. We can't be." She hurries over to the other side of the room to a desk opposite the fish tank and lifts a photograph up. There's a blue woman displayed on it. "No!" she exclaims.

"What?" says Pete.

"Don't you see?" Is she... grinning? She's grinning. She's grinning from ear to ear and holding the picture of the blue woman up.

"What?" says Pete.

"Look where we are, Pete! This is an awesome artefact!"

She's bouncing and holding the picture and grinning and Pete is not going to get _any_ sense out of her at this rate so he bounds forward, grabs her shoulders and exclaims, "CLAUDIA, WHAT?"

She finally blinks and comes out of her geek stupor and says, "We're _in a video game_."

"What?" says Pete.

She rolls her eyes and puts the picture down. "This," she says, "is the cabin of one Commander Shepard, Commander of the Normandy SR-2 in the video game 'Mass Effect 2'." She grins and points at the fish tank. "See? Shepard never feeds her fish! And they're dead!"

Pete looks at the fish floating on the surface, which are very, very disturbing, then back at Claudia. "It all looks very... real... though."

Claudia nods. "It looks amazing. I guess the artefact makes it all look as real as we are?" She spins around in the room, gleeful. "This is great! Come on!" She grabs him by the wrist and tows him out of Shepard's cabin and into the elevator.

"Shouldn't we be trying to figure a way out of this...?" says Pete.

"I'm _in Mass Effect_," Claudia says, levelling a glare on him. "I want _five minutes_ of enjoying this and then we can bag, tag and move on."

Pete eyes her warily. She seems a little _too_ into this, so he warily stands in the elevator and tries to remember if Claudia ever mentioned this game before, or if he's played it. The only thing that pops into his head is RPG, so he says, "Is this one of those RPG games?"

Claudia nods and she's still grinning. Pete loves it when she grins, she always looks so utterly gleeful and her smile is bigger than her face, so he grins a bit too, stuffs his hands in his pockets and grins. "Okay then," he says. "Where are we going and how long does it take to get there?"

"Elevators take forever in this game," says Claudia, but she doesn't seem to care. "There's a hypothesis that the Protheans died out because the elevators took too long to take them anywhere, not because of the Reapers."

The doors finally open and Claudia flies out like she's magnetically attracted to something on the deck and Pete mouths, "Reapers?" at nothing in particular and follows her.

The deck the elevator has stopped on has a small mess hall, empty, and a couple of doors. One is labelled 'INFIRMARY' and, for a moment, Pete thinks that's where they're going, but then Claudia strides straight on, all the way to the far end and a door labelled 'MAIN BATTERY' swishes open.

The man standing in the Main Battery turns around and Claudia squeals.

Pete is completely sure that isn't _his_ first reaction. "What is that?" he exclaims.

"Garrus!" Claudia squeals.

The terrifying creature before them tilts his head and says, "Who are you and how did you get onto the ship?"

Claudia's smile doesn't even falter. She just stands there, grinning like an idiot, and Pete steps in to say to the really, really scary guy, picking up on the word 'ship', "Uh. We just sorta ended up here. We have no idea how we got here. Are you the captain?"

"No," says Garrus, but I'll take you to him.

"Him?" says Claudia.

* * *

><p><em>Him<em> turns out to be Commander John Shepard or, as Claudia insists on calling him, Sheploo.

"This is so cool," Claudia says, grinning from ear to ear.

Pete doesn't think standing with weapons pointed at them is cool, personally. He thinks it's just another day at the office.

"How did you get on my ship?" says Shepard and Pete sighs.

"We just... appeared," he says, helplessly. "Trust me, we don't want to be here."

"I do," says Claudia, still grinning like some insane person.

Pete groans. "Claud," he says, "I don't think you seem to realise they have _guns_ on us."

That seems to at least vaguely bring her around and she swallows, grin fading – and Pete mourns it a little – and says, "Right."

"I got the camera recording, Commander." A very Australian-sounding woman enters the room they're in and pauses, hands clasped behind her back. "EDI, playback the recording."

"That's Miranda Lawson," whispers Claudia as Shepard and Miranda watch the recording and Garrus keeps his gun trained on them. "She brought him back from the dead."

"Claud, I like these kinds of games as much as the next guy but—"

"No, you like Call of Duty," Claudia says. "You like shooting people in the face and then shouting, "FUCK YEAH, KILLSTREAK!" at the top of your lungs."

Pete feels a little like he's about to die. "You've... heard that?"

"Yeah." Claudia shakes her head and turns away. "Okay," she says, after a moment. Miranda and Shepard are arguing between themselves and Garrus is pitching in occasionally. "We need to figure out what caused this."

Pete shakes his head. "I have no idea," he says. "Maybe the spirit of Bastet did something?"

"Why would Bastet send us into Mass Effect?" Claudia crosses her arms and Pete takes the opportunity to finally _look_ at EDI and Miranda. EDI... is weird. He doesn't want to think about EDI because he suspects she should be in the Warehouse, locked away nice and secure. Miranda, on the other hand, is just... nicely shaped.

"Pete, you're drooling," Claudia says, with a sigh.

"Am not." He checks his mouth just in case.

"She's a genetically engineered 'perfect human'." Claudia does air quotes, as though she doesn't quite believe it.

"I can see that." Pete _can_ believe it. Claudia rolls her eyes and finally their not-so-gracious hosts make their way back across to the stowaways.

"What technology did you use to just appear in my cabin?" asks Shepard.

"We told you," says Claudia. "We don't know. We just... appeared."

Miranda scowls. "Perhaps we should hand them to the Illusive Man."

"I'd rather not give humans to the Illusive Man," says Shepard. "I know what he does with them."

Claudia shudders visibly so Pete inches a little closer to her. "Look," he says. "Just... drop us off somewhere. I promise we're not trouble. We're just lost."

Shepard's scowl almost matches Miranda's, but before he can respond a blue circle appears on the wall to his left, right at the end of the table.

"Pete!" Claudia exclaims, grabbing his arm.

The circle pops and becomes hollow, leading through to an almost white room.

"What's that?" says Pete.

"What is _that_?" says Miranda and he looks sideways at her because he _just_ said that.

"It's a Portal!" Claudia pulls on his arm and hauls him towards the blue Portal. He goes willingly because it's better than here.

"Stop!" exclaims Miranda and Garrus raises his weapon, but they're through the Portal before Shepard can give an order to shoot and when Claudia looks back, it's closed behind them.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Chapter 3 took a while coming due to Christmas and my own distinct lack of ability to brain. I'm sorry about that! But here it is and I'll try and be more prompt in future. This chapter takes place in the game Portal. Specifically, Portal 2 - cooperative mode.

"Kyle?"

Maggie Wilson pokes her head around her son's bedroom door and eyes him. "Kyle, what are you doing still playing games? It's late."

"Those guys fixed my computer for me," Kyle says, as though that explains everything. "I wanted to play some games."

Maggie leans in the doorway. "You need to sleep. You have school tomorrow."

"Mom," Kyle whines, "I only just started playing."

"How long is only just?"

He sighs and checks his watch. "Two minutes," he says. "I just sat down."

She eyes him. "Okay," she says, you can play until midnight but _no later_." She turns away from the doorway and Kyle silently punches the air.

His screen flickers and something changes, colours flashing and mutating.

"Huh?" He hits his screen, as though that will help, wiggles his mouse but nothing that should be moving isn't and everything that shouldn't is.

Commander Shepard walks off the left side of the screen and Kyle stares.

The screen turns to multiple coloured blocks and then snaps to an image of Claudia and Pete emerging from a Portal together.

Kyle stares at the screen in disbelief, then turns it off and walks to the doorway. "Never mind, mom, I'll go to sleep now."

He scratches his neck and wanders back to his bed.

He obviously needs the sleep.

* * *

><p>"That looks sore," Helena says, reaching her fingertips out towards the side of Myka's face, down which there's a large, painful scratch.<p>

"It's fine," Myka says and accepts a cup of tea off Leena with a thankful smile.

"Where's Claudia? Pete?" asks Artie, entering the B&B and placing his bag down on the table.

Myka shrugs. "They're going to follow me back tomorrow. Claudia's fixing the kid's computer since we broke it." She wraps her fingers around the mug of tea and lets the warmth spread through her.

"You broke it?" says Helena, lips twitching with amusement.

"Tesla'd it," says Myka. "It was us or it."

"Well, as long as they're all right." Artie sits down at the table and leans back, taking off his glasses. "I might actually get some sleep if Claudia isn't at the warehouse tonight." He shudders. "Loud... loud music when she works."

"You could just send her to bed," suggests Myka.

Artie squints at her. "But then who would fix the computers?"

Myka laughs and stands up. "I'm going to bed," she says. "I'll send out the search party if they don't come back by tomorrow."

"Do you have that, ah, book you promised me, Myka?" Helena asks, standing too.

"Book? Oh. Oh! Yes. It's in my room." Myka coughs a little awkwardly and moves towards the stairs. "Come on then."

Once they're upstairs, Artie looks at Leena. "Who do they think they're fooling?" he says.

"You," she replies.

"Oh," says Artie.

* * *

><p>"What the hell is this game?" Pete says, walking around in the small white room.<p>

Claudia walks in slowly. "It's Portal," she says, quietly. "Hm." She navigates through a small doorway and into a second, small, white room. There, in the middle of the room, is a Portal gun, sitting on a pedestal.

"Oh, fuck yes," she mutters.

"What is it?" asks Pete, following on her heels.

"It's a Portal gun." She reaches out, almost reverent, and takes the gun into her hands. She examines it for a moment before sighing, happily. "I would give _anything_ to have one of these for real," she says, "or just to know how to make one."

She carefully slides her hand into the aperture and aims the gun at the wall.

"Claud, what are you doing?" asks Pete.

She grins and fires a red Portal, then an yellow one at the wall opposite. She can see herself through the Portals, thousands of her going on forever. She grins broadly at Pete. Oh yes, this is what she likes.

"That's pretty cool," says Pete, appreciatively.

"We need boots." Claudia makes her way around the room, pushing at things and pressing buttons until a drawer opens low down.

"Boots?" asks Pete.

"Long-Fall boots." She pulls two pairs of boots from the drawer and hands one set to Pete.

He eyes them warily. "These look kinda..."

"_Awesome_?" Claudia fills in. "I know, right?" She pulls the boots on and bounces on them a little. "You literally _cannot_ land on your head when you're wearing these."

"Riiiight..." Pete pulls his boots on and bounces a bit too. "I feel so safe."

Claudia laughs.

"This isn't addressing the question of how to get out of here, though," he says.

"Good point. I was kinda hoping I could Portal through into reality." Claudia aims the gun upwards but none of her red Portals go anywhere useful, so she sighs and drops her arm. "I have to try this, then we'll talk artefacts." She fires a red Portal up at the ceiling then she dives into the yellow one beside her.

"Claudia!" Pete shouts.

She falls from the ceiling and then fires a red Portal at her feet. When she falls through that one she comes flying out of the yellow one at what feels like a hundred miles an hour and skids to a halt just before she hits the wall.

She flips her hair back, trying to look composed, and walks serenely back to Pete. "Yep," she says, "exactly as awesome as I thought it'd be."

* * *

><p>Claudia refuses to give up the Portal gun for even a minute, so she and Pete sit on the floor against the wall and talk about artefacts with her nursing it like her own newborn child.<p>

Pete is a tiny bit freaked out by her attachment to the object.

"Okay," he says, trying to break it down. "What were we doing before this happened?"

"Fixing that kid's computer. Kay... Ki..."

"Kyle."

"Right. Kyle. Because _someone_ fried it."

"Wasn't me!" Pete exclaims.

Claudia nods. "Oh I know. Myka's getting _so many_ tailor made viruses when we get back. So many..."

"Well, before you let loose the greatest Trojan horse of all time," says Pete, "can we figure out what the artefact is?"

Claudia nods. "Must have been something we were both touching. The computer?"

Pete shakes his head. "No. Doesn't fit."

They sit and ponder for a second until Pete says, "I don't have to have been touching it."

"Huh?"

"I was touching you."

"You don't have to say it like _that_," Claudia all but splutters, but then she nods and says, "So it's something _I_ was touching."

"Whatever it is," says Pete, "it's probably out there... not in here."

"Damn."

"Any suggestions how we get out of here?"

"No idea. I thought maybe portal out, but someone would have to be on the other side..."

Pete opens his mouth to speak but the voice Claudia hears next isn't his... it's a woman's voice, coming from overhead, perhaps through a speaker.

"_Hello and once again welcome to the Apeture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Centre._"

Claudia stands, slowly, holding the portal device like a lifeline.

"_Today, you will be testing with a partner. Please wave to your partner_."

Claudia turns towards Pete, a look of abject horror on her face, and cautiously lifts the hand not currently covered with a portal gun to wave at him. He waves back, looking confused.

The floor disappears from under Claudia and the next thing she knows she's plummeting downwards. "Pete!" she shouts, but she can't see him or hear him and the walls of the tunnel she's in flash past her too fast to do anything about with her hands or the portal gun. All she can do is make sure she doesn't drop the gun and wait for the fall to end.

She slams into the ground at the bottom of the tube and is exceedingly grateful she put the long fall boots on and made Pete wear a pair too. She can't see him anywhere when she straightens up and looks around, all she can see is the small room she's in containing a button and a locked door, and a glass wall separating her from a room with a door and a cube.

"Pete?" she calls out.

She turns her head in time to see Pete hit the ground on the other side of the glass. Unlike her landing, however, his is less graceful and once the boots have cushioned his fall he tips forward to land on his hands and knees, gasping.

"_That_," he says, "was terrifying!" He scrambles to his feet. "Why would you _play something like this_?"

"It's a bit different when you're using a controller," says Claudia. She steps across to the glass, presses her hand against it, testing the strength of it. "We're going to have to test."

"To what?" Pete comes to stand closer and places his hand against the glass on the other side of hers. If it weren't for the glass they'd be touching.

"Test." Claudia holds up her other hand, still with the portal gun covering it. "It's what you do on this game."

"Sounds boring," says Pete. He wanders across and kicks the cube but it doesn't budge. "So, what do we do?"

"It's not boring." Claudia scowls and eyes the test. "This one's simple," she says. "Pick that cube up, pass it through that hole..." She points at the hole in the glass. "I'll put it on the button and we'll move on."

Pete nods. "Sounds simple enough," he says. He moves across, bends down and picks up the cube.

Except he doesn't. Instead, he groans, flails and falls flat on his ass, somehow, despite the boots keeping him upright. "Uh... this is heavy," he says.

Claudia stifles a laugh behind her hand. "Here," she says, and moves across to the hole in the glass. "Have this." Despite the fact she would like to keep the portal gun in her hands forever, she pulls it off and holds it in the gap. "There's a button on the side you use to lift heavy objects."

Pete takes the portal gun and gives her a smile. "Thank _you_," he says, and pushes it onto his arm. "How's this thing work anyway?" He aims it at the cube, presses the wrong button and red sparks fly.

"Button _on the side_," Claudia shouts through the gap.

"I got it, I got it..." He pokes around the device with his free hand. "Button on the side she says," he mutters to himself as he finally finds it. He presses the button and the cube lifts up into the air. "Oh, that's so much simpler," he says.

"Bring it over here. Come on." Claudia beckons him over and he lifts the cube through the gap and drops it the other side, then he passes her the portal device.

"You don't have to be so _pushy_," he says.

Claudia scowls at him, pushes the portal device onto her arm and lifts the cube. "You know," she says, "if you'd known better than to grab me while I was being electrocuted, we wouldn't both be in this mess."

"No, you'd be in here _alone_," says Pete, leaning his forearms on the bottom of the gap. "And excuse me for reacting to your impending death."

Claudia rolls her eyes, drops the cube on the button and the doors swish open both sides.

"Nice!" Pete exclaims.

They move through the doors together and meet up in the next room, containing two elevators. Claudia bites her lip and looks at Pete. "Uh," she says, "this is going to be rough."

"_That took you an exceedingly long time to complete, Blue. Were you napping_?" says GLaDOS.

Claudia snickers. Pete looks at her. "Wait," he says, "am _I_ blue?"

"Yes." She steps into the orange elevator and the glass closes around her.

"Claud!" exclaims Pete.

She points at the blue elevator. "We gotta play the game," she says.

Pete walks over to the elevator and eyes it, then climbs in nervously. "I'm not going to like this, am I?" he says, and then the bottom drops out and they're both falling, yet again.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **_**I've taken a few creative liberties. First off, Skyrim wasn't out when this is set (mid-season 2 time), but I'm treating it like it is, so just imagine W13 is set a year or so in the future. This chapter is set in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.**

* * *

><p>There's something to be said for soft landings, Claudia decides, as she plummets downwards and slams into the ground with a painful jolt. Sure, the boots help, but when you hit a rock it doesn't really help enough to stop you flailing sideways and almost cracking your head on <em>another<em> rock.

Pete makes an undignified noise as _he_ lands beside her, but the difference is that he stays on his feet. "I like these boots," he announces, then he notices her on the ground. "Claud? You okay?"

She nods, clambers to her feet and brushes herself off with her hands. At which point, she realises she's without portal gun.

She looks around. "Where are we?" she says.

"I have no idea," says Pete.

They're standing at the side of a road of some sort. It's not a modern road, however, instead made of dirt and rocks, and their surroundings aren't the real world. Nothing like it, in fact.

"I'll bite," says Claudia. She casts her eyes skyward and then over the horizon. "Any clues whatsoever?"

Pete shakes his head. "Nothing I've ever seen before. I'm more of a Grand Theft Auto man."

"I know." Claudia turns around, taking in the scenery, speculatively. "Maybe... Hm."

"Hm?"

"Maybe Dragon Age?" She bounces a little on the long fall boots, still on her feet, and looks at Pete's hands. "Wait, where'd your portal device go?"

He looks down at his hands. "I didn't even notice," he says. "Where _did_ it go?"

"I bet we fell through an emancipation grille. Ugh." Claudia pulls a face. "Just what I need; stuck in a whole other world and I don't even get to keep the portal gun."

They turn around when they hear the sound of hooves approaching and there, on the road, is a horse and cart. Multiple horses, in fact, driven by a grumpy looking man.

"Hey!" exclaims Pete, jogging towards the cart. "Can you tell us where we are?"

The man looks Pete over, then Claudia. "You're not Nords, are you, son?" he says, in a vaguely Scandinavian accent.

"Nords?" Claudia mouths.

Pete shakes his head. "Nope, 'fraid not. Where are we?"

The driver looks him over. "Edge of Whiterun," he says. "I can take you there for gold."

"We don't have any gold," says Claudia. "We're lost... We don't even know where we are. Can you point us towards this... Whiterun?"

The driver sighs and shakes his head in despair. "Get on the back," he says, "I'll take you the rest of the way."

"_Thank you_," says Pete. He clambers onto the back of the cart and grabs Claudia's hand to haul her on with him, then they settle onto the seats. "Hey, uh, where are we? You say we're by this... Whiterun, but where is that?"

"Skyrim, son," says the driver. He sighs. "You must have been at the Nord Mead last night. A lot of it, too. Did you get into a drinking contest with someone?"

"No," says Pete. "I really didn't."

* * *

><p>"Skyrim..." Claudia's muttering to herself as they follow the driver towards the large stone walls of 'Whiterun'. "I know the name..."<p>

Pete shrugs. "Hand me a gun and tell me to shoot campers, I can do that. Ask me to work out what game Skyrim is from and I-"

"Oh!" Claudia spins around, walking backwards towards the gates now in front of Pete. "_Skyrim_!"

"Skyrim?"

"It's a game! Elder Scrolls!"

"...Okay?"

She laughs. "I was going to get it but I bought some stuff to upgrade my Farnsworth instead."

Pete raises an eyebrow. "Okay," he says, again. "So, we're in this Skyrim thing? What do we _do_ in this Skyrim thing?"

"Fight dragons?" Claudia suggests, pulling a face. "Or we can just try and exist as best we can."

They follow the driver in through the gates of the city and once they're inside he points up the lane. "There's an inn up ahead," he says, "you can get a room there and probably some work chopping wood or harvesting crops. Or a bounty or two if you fancy yourself an adventurer."

"Us? Adventurers?" Pete laughs. "Nah."

Claudia rolls her eyes. "Thank you for all your help," she says and tugs on Pete's sleeve. "Come on, let's go find this inn."

The inn turns out to be a nice-looking and warmly welcoming establishment called The Bannered Mare. As they enter a few patrons shoot them speculative looks and one or two seem to prime themselves for a fight, but at the bar they find a lady who introduces herself as Hulda and offers them a room for ten gold.

"That's the thing," says Pete, "we don't have any gold."

Hulda raises an eyebrow at him. "Then I don't have a room for you."

"We were told you might have some work for us," says Claudia. "Chopping wood or something?"

"If you think you're tough enough, there's a chopping block outside and I'll give you coin if you bring me wood," says Hulda. "And I can give you a mop if you'd like to clean the floors." She offers the last part at Claudia, who looks horrified at the thought.

"You don't have any computers for me to hack, I guess?" says Claudia, helplessly.

"We'll take the work," says Pete. "Got an axe?"

"Why are you so determined to get _work_?" snaps Claudia a few minutes later, after a mop got thrust into her hands and Pete has started heading for the door with a wood chopping axe in his hands.

"I remember how tired you were before this happened," he says. "I figure if we can stop and get some sleep before we get shoved into another game, we should take the opportunity."

Claudia sighs. "I suppose," she says, "but mopping the floor?"

"Hulda says she'll give me five gold for every stack of wood I bring her," says Pete. "I only have to do two and we can afford a room for the night. I figure by the time we wake up, we'll already be in another game."

"Great." Claudia sighs and, grumpy, sloshes the mop across the floor. "And if we don't?"

"We make do until Myka and Artie rescue us."

"_Great_," Claudia says again. She leans on the mop. "Have a nice time chopping wood."

Pete grins at her. "Have a nice time being a scullery maid," he offers in return, and gets water flicked at him for his trouble.

* * *

><p>Pete looks exhausted by the time he brings wood back to Hulda and Claudia doesn't feel much better. For the work she's done she's managed to earn them what Hulda says is a 'good square meal'. Pete, meanwhile, has earned them a room, which happens to be a big one with only one bed.<p>

Claudia isn't sorry; the last thing she wants is to be separated from Pete when they have _no_ idea what's going to happen next.

They sit on the bed together, Pete up by the pillows with his legs spread out and Claudia with her legs tucked up underneath her, and pick through the food.

"Doesn't taste like pixels," says Pete, already half way through his seared salmon.

Claudia sighs down at her own wooden plate. She doesn't fancy the food, knowing that it's not even real, and she feels sick at the idea of having to spend too long in these games.

Pete starts in on his sweet roll and she watches him, glumly. "I'm never going to want to play game again," she says.

"Sure you are," says Pete. "We've been through worse and we still want to do most of the things that tried to kill us. I mean, just look at you."

Claudia raises an eyebrow. "You want to _do_ me?" she says.

Pete chokes on his sweet roll. "What? No. I, uh. I meant... that... you tried to kill Artie and we still like you!"

"I didn't try to kill Artie," Claudia says, and doesn't let Pete's quick correction bother her. "I just... kidnapped him."

"And almost got him killed."

"Yeah, well, there's a difference between almost getting someone killed and deliberately trying to kill them." She drops the plate of food on the end table and turns around to sit up by the pillow on her side of the bed. "What if we get stuck in games forever?"

Pete shrugs. "We won't. And if we do... we'll make do."

"Make do?"

"Sure." Another shrug and Pete places his empty plates on the end table on his side of the bed. "I can think of worse things than being trapped in video games with you for the rest of my life."

Claudia smiles at him, yawns and slides down the bed so her head is on the pillow. Pete climbs off the bed and tugs at the covers until she lets them go and they both slip underneath to lie side-by-side watching the ceiling.

"What if we got stuck in _Portal_ though?" she says. "We'd end up testing. Forever and ever."

Pete laughs. "Nah," he says, "we'd escape and hide and make a camp in the walls."

"In the walls?" Claudia grins. "She'd find us."

"Then we'd find her first."

"That never ends well." Claudia yawns again, rolls over to face Pete and pulls some of the covers around her. There are another two sets of clothes on the dresser, waiting for them in the morning, and Claudia figures if they're still here in the morning she'll put them on. Until then, however, she's happy in her jeans and hoodie.

"We'll be fine, Claudia," Pete promises, quietly.

"Okay," she says, closing her eyes.

Pete lies awake for a long time after that, trying to convince himself of his promise as Claudia sleeps soundly beside him, on her side of the bed.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **_**Again, liberties have been taken with game release dates. More Skyrim! Next chapter will have some Myka/HG. I'm hoping this one was worth the LONG wait - I'm so sorry :|**

* * *

><p>Pete is the last to sleep and the first to wake up. Claudia is still all but passed out beside him with a good, respectful distance between them, and he's not surprised. Despite the bed looking hard and lumpy, it's actually soft and comfortable, not to mention warm. He swings his legs off the bed, yawns and stretches out, then he reaches for the set of men's clothes on the dresser.<p>

He checks Claudia is still asleep, strips off and gets dressed in the new clothing and then he steps to the window, looking out over Whiterun. It's definitely a pretty city, with towers and buildings and people coming and going, but there's something about it that doesn't sit right. Not enough people, not enough noise and movement.

It's not quite alive.

"What time is it?" Claudia asks, sleepily, as she wakes and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. "Wait... where..." She looks around. "Oh."

"Yeah, I'm not sure they've actually invented clocks yet," says Pete. He tosses the other set of clothing at Claudia. "You get changed. I'm going to go and find a toilet."

"Good luck with that," mutters Claudia.

Pete wanders through the inn looking for a toilet for a few minutes before he gives up and goes outside, in the gutter, hidden behind the houses. "Video games," he mutters to himself as he goes, "never... have... toilets."

He pulls his clothing straight and walks around the inn to head back inside. He's just about to turn towards the doorway when a woman barges straight into him.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" she exclaims, grabbing his arm to stop from falling down. "I was chasing my daughter and I didn't see you there."

"That's okay." Pete smiles and keeps his arm out for support, preventing her from stumbling again. "I'm Pete."

She smiles. "Carlotta Valentia."

"Nice to meet you, Carlotta Valentia," says Pete with his winning grin. "Where did your daughter go?"

Carlotta sighs. "Don't worry. She'll be back. I told her she couldn't go and play until she helped clear up and, well..."

"She went and played anyway." Pete nods. "Yeah... I was like that at her age."

"Pete!" Claudia appears almost from nowhere, now wearing the blue clothing Hulda provided. She looks gorgeous and it takes a second for Pete to stop looking, then he says, "Hey Claud. I was just talking to Carlotta here..."

Claudia gives Carlotta an awkward, stiff smile. "Hey," she says. She looks back at Pete. "She's a pixel, Pete," she says, quietly.

"Excuse me, what did you say?" says Carlotta.

"Nothing. She didn't say anything. Don't worry." Pete shoots Claudia a glare. "We should be going now, though. It was nice meeting you, Carlotta. Maybe I'll see you again soon?"

"I'd like that," says Carlotta, and disappears back into the lacking crowd.

"If we get stuck here," says Pete, "she's going to be our neighbour."

Claudia shudders a little. "Neighbours with pixels. I did _not_ expect this to be my life."

Pete shrugs. "Nor did I," he says. "Now, what should we do today?"

There's a moment of silence in which they both muse the fact they're trapped in a world they don't know and then they retreat back inside to sit on the bed in the inn, side by side. "I've been thinking," says Claudia and Pete looks at her. "Games, with the exception of _maybe_ the Sims, depending on who is playing, are always dangerous. Monsters and stuff, you know?"

"Yeah, sure. That's the point, right?" Pete turns around a little so instead of sitting side-by-side he's facing her. Claudia doesn't move, she just sits with her hands folded between her knees with her Serious Face on.

"What if we die?" She finally looks at Pete. "Games are designed so you die more often than you statistically would in real life. We could be eaten by a wolf or shot by a Turian or attacked by a killer mongoose!"

"Claud," says Pete.

"No! No but what if there are bees! Some games have bees!" She jumps to her feet, wringing her hands and spins around to face Pete. "I don't want to die because I forgot to put my long fall boots on or I don't know how to say 'hello' in some Skyrim tongue or—"

"Claudia!" Pete jumps up and grabs her by the upper arms, squeezing hard enough to snap her out of her babbling. "We're not going to die," he says, with a smile. "We've been through worse than this and if we can do things that should be confined to games in real life we can deal with games."

Claudia breathes in slowly and nods. Pete keeps his hands on her shoulders and then finally she looks up and meets his eyes.

He smiles. "Okay?"

She nods. "Okay," she says and smiles back. "Okay. We'll be fine."

"Jump in the nearest body of water," says Pete and Claudia wrinkles her brow in confusion.

"What?"

"If there are bees."

Claudia bursts out laughing.

"You must leave now," says a voice in the doorway and they turn to see Hulda standing there. "Your twenty-four hours are up."

"All right." Pete pulls away from Claudia, who sighs and sags a little without the feel of his hands holding her in place. "Is there... um..." He ponders for a moment. "A blacksmith in town, maybe?"

"A blacksmith?" says Claudia.

"Weapons. Everyone in this ga—" Pete breaks off and looks at Hulda before quickly correcting, "_Town_. Everyone in this _town_ has weapons. I figure we need some too."

"Right!" Claudia steps beside Pete and looks at Hulda, who looks utterly confused by both of them.

"There's a blacksmith down that way," she says. "Straight down the hill and to the bottom, to the left of the main gates."

"Excellent," says Pete. "Thank you."

Hulda smiles. "Come back here if you want another room."

Pete gives Hulda a dazzling smile. "We will," he says.

Claudia rolls her eyes, grabs Pete by the elbow and hauls him away.

* * *

><p>"You know, it wouldn't hurt to make friends with the locals," Pete says, grumpily, as Claudia hauls him away from Adrianne Avenicci. He pulls his elbow free and looks down at the sword he purchased with the gold he made chopping wood the night before. "Nice," he says.<p>

"It's not _friends_ you're making," says Claudia, a little huffily, and tests out her bow and dagger set.

Pete stares at her. "You really think I'd do that to you?" he says.

She looks at him, surprised. "What?"

"Go off with some pixel and leave you alone." He slips his sword into its sheathe on his belt. "I'm not _that_ bad."

Claudia has the good grace to look a little ashamed of herself for assuming he would, even as she wonders about her own gut reaction to what he said. "So," she says, wanting to distract herself and him, "what's the plan?"

"Adrianne says there's a bandit cave nearby. I thought we could go and check it out. Kill some bandits and use the money to get food and find somewhere to stay for the night again. I figure we'll be switching games again soon... we just gotta stay alive until we do."

"And a bandit cave is the best way of staying alive?" says Claudia, wrinkling her nose up and squinting at Pete against the sunlight.

"It's the best way of making a living in a game like this, isn't it?" says Pete.

Claudia nods. "Good point," she says. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>It takes them a while to find the bandit cave with only a map and no access to Google to search for a walkthrough and by the time they find it they're already getting tired. "This is ridiculous," Claudia says and collapses onto a barrel near the entrance to the cave. There are bottles of ale and mead sprinkled all around so she grabs the nearest one and takes a few languid swallows to clear the taste of unbrushed teeth from her mouth. Pete drinks from the nearest stream and then nods his agreement.<p>

"When you're running around in circles on games you never realise just how unrealistic it is," he says. "We're fit but... this is _stupid_!"

"You're calling me fit, huh?" says Claudia, smirking.

Pete looks flustered for a moment before he says, "Ha, ha," and turns away to look at the cave. "Are we going in or should we rest here a while?"

"I'm good to go if you are," says Claudia and draws her bow. "I know what these Bethesda caves are like," she says by way of explanation, "something bad will be in there."

"All right." Pete pulls his own sword and they step through the cave entrance and into... Not the cave.

They're in a passage, not made of rock or stone but instead made of some strange, bright white... thing. It doesn't look real to the point that Claudia steps back out of the passage and hangs around on the lip of the cave, still just outside in Skyrim itself. There are lines of code flitting backwards and forwards across the white and there seems to be a path, leading from where Pete and Claudia are standing into another cave.

"What is this?" says Pete, very awed and a little afraid.

"It's a loading screen... of course it is," says Claudia.

"What?"

"There are loading screens between areas... like when you go through doors and that. But in some places, the seam isn't... exact." Claudia smacks her hands together a little, as though that will illustrate the point she's trying to make. Pete looks blankly at her. "You know the Umbilicus? Imagine if when you entered the Warehouse, because the Umbilicus was too boring, you just emerged straight into Artie's office."

"Right...?"

"In between those two places you have a loading screen, which dumps all the outside world and instead loads the inside world – the Warehouse and Artie's office. But our minds tell us that we _should_ have something between the door and the office and so when we're _in_ the game..." She gestures at the white space. "We have this."

"Huh," says Pete.

"We _should_," says Claudia and gently steps off the edge of the map and onto the white space, "be able to get across."

Pete gives her a disbelieving look, but she carries on along the almost-path regardless and reaches the mouth of the cave on the other side so Pete follows and when he reaches the other side he grins at Claudia. "You're way too smart to play video games."

She scowls at him. "I'm going to pretend you never said that," she says and ducks inside the cave.

* * *

><p>They take three bandits down in the first room and sneak through into the second. "How was this a good idea?" Claudia hisses, crouched behind a rock with Pete. She's sweaty and tired and her arm is starting to ache from firing so many arrows at the heads of unsuspecting bandits. Pete doesn't look much better, with a cut on his forearm from fighting a bandit with his sword and muck on his face from falling face-down in the dirt at least once, just to be saved by one of Claudia's arrows.<p>

"I'm starting to wonder," says Pete. He keeps his back against the stone, trying to remain quiet and undetected and failing. Claudia peeps up over the top.

"That," she says, "is not a normal bandit." She drops back down. "Oh god!" she exclaims.

"What?" says Pete.

"I think this is a vampire cave."

"What," says Pete.

"They had vampires in Oblivion. I guess it makes sense to have them in Skyrim too..."

Pete makes a strange hand movement.

"What?" says Claudia.

"Sparkle?" he mouths, looking terrified.

"No. Worse." She sighs. "Maybe I'm wrong." She peeks up over the rock again then drops back down. "Nope. I'm not wrong. We're screwed."

"We're not screwed," says Pete, keeping his voice low. "They're just vampires. We'll just... shoot at them until they go away."

"They're _vampires_," hisses Claudia. "And worse still, they're AI vampires. _They don't go away_. We need to get out of here."

Pete opens his mouth but at that moment a light hits them from the nearby wall. A wooden door appears in the cave wall and opens.

"Escape route?" Pete suggests.

"So far it's gotten progressively worse..." says Claudia.

"Let's risk it," says Pete and grabs her by the hand, hauling her to her feet and running towards the door. The vampire turns, hisses and hits Pete with a bolt of something from its hand. They fall through the door together and slam to the ground on the other side.

The door disappears and they're alone, the vampire trapped on the other side.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: **_**I realise it's been ages since the last update, but I've had this wonderful problem of being only Past Tense again. So... now we're past tense. I'm going to go through the previous chapters and edit and convert them to past tense too. Ah well, I'm evolving as a writer, right? This chapter has _Minecraft_ and _Alan Wake_, which I've played a lot of recently and is honestly one of the most psychologically terrifying games ever. **

* * *

><p>The door lead them into the middle of nowhere and Claudia looked around trying to get an idea of what game they were in as quickly as possible. Nothing about the place felt right, in fact it felt very <em>wrong<em>. Everything was square and pixels and... 8bit.

"Minecraft."

Pete looked at Claudia and blinked. "You mean that weird game you play where you're just running around building things?"

"Yep," said Claudia. It was the middle of the day, something she was exceedingly grateful for, and she started walking, Pete trotting along behind her. "I bet this isn't creative mode though."

"Creative mode?" Pete asked.

"Yeah, it has three modes: Creative, Survival and Hardcore," she said.

"There is only one of those I like the sound of," he said.

She sighed. "Yeah... Creative means there's no monsters and stuff gets destroyed instantly. Survival, there are monsters. Hardcore there are really hard monsters and if you die you stay dead."

"Bet this is hardcore," said Pete.

"Yeah," she said. She'd moved across to a hillside with some trees. "We need to punch trees. I hope the game mechanics work the same for us as they would if we were players."

"Punch... trees...?" Pete was stuck on.

"Punch trees," she confirmed. "If you punch trees you can get wood and make tools and a crafting bench and stuff."

Pete stared at her. "By... punching trees?"

"Just go with it, Pete," Claudia begged. "I'm just telling you how you play the game."

He sighed. "Okay, you start, I'll... follow you."

She nodded, approached a tree and started punching it. He watched her, torn between thinking she'd lost her mind and being amused by her, and then the middle chunk of the tree fell out and she picked up the smallest cube of wood ever.

"Oh," said Pete.

Another nod. "Start punching," she said and started piling up the cubes of wood.

A few minutes later they had enough – according to Claudia – to build a crafting table, so she stacked the cubes of wood up and stared at them.

"Um?" said Pete.

"I'm trying to work out how to make them into planks," she admitted.

"I'm assuming you _don't_ chop them up?" he said.

"No." She placed her hand on the top of the wood and pushed. The wood duplicated into four and turned into wooden planks. "Yes!" She punched the air. "Donovan one, mincraft zero!"

Pete stared at her some more as she grouped four planks into a block, pressed down and it became a crafting table.

"This game is insane," Pete informed her.

"Yeah," she said, "I never really thought about it before, but... yeah." She grouped the items together in other ways and a couple of moments later handed him a wooden axe and a wooden pickaxe. "Hey, you're Pickaxe Pete," she said and he laughed and started chopping more wood.

He looked up after a moment to see she'd climbed up the hill and was using the shovel to carve out large chunks of soil. "What're you doing?"

"I'm making us a shelter," she said. "We need to be safe before nightfall."

"Why?" he asked. "What happens at nightfall?"

"The monsters come out," she replied. "We have enough wood. Come over here and carve out a hole big enough to take shelter in while I try and find food and sheep and water."

He nodded. "All right," he said and hurried over to help her.

* * *

><p>Claudia returned just before nightfall with arms full of wool and meat. Pete had placed the crafting table in the corner of the shelter and there was a large amount of stone saved up as well.<p>

"Looking good," said Claudia. Something growled, making Pete jump, and she slipped down inside the shelter. She used the crafting table to create some torches and placed one in the corner of the room to illuminate it, then started covering the opening with stone.

"Hey, Claud?" said Pete. "How likely are we to get eaten?"

"We're safe in here," she said and grinned at him. "Don't worry!" She moved down towards the bottom of the shelter and dug a little deeper until she revealed a pool.

"Water!" Pete exclaimed and rushed down, dipping his hands in it and drinking deep.

"You act like you haven't drunk in days," said Claudia. "Why didn't you grab some Nord m—" She broke off.

"Yeah," said Pete. "No one had any water, just mead."

"I am so sorry," said Claudia weakly, sitting down nearby and putting a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. "If I'd known I would've asked where there was a river or something. We could've found you something to drink. Pete..."

"It's fine, Claud." He smiled at her and drank some more. "Now I have weird 8bit water to drink instead."

She found herself laughing, even though she felt bad, and dropped down to sit a little closer to him, against the stone wall by the water. "I punched some cows and got some meat," she said, "we can cook it up in a furnace, so we can hold out here for a few days."

"That's good," said Pete and sat next to her. "I don't think I ever realised how scary video games were before."

"I know, right?!" said Claudia. "Agh!" She did a strangling gesture at thin air and then leant back again.

"What do we do if we're still stuck in here when we run out of food?" asked Pete.

"Go back out and kill more cows I guess," said Claudia. "Maybe explore a little, I don't know..."

"I really don't want to spend the rest of my life in a video game," Pete decided. "I want to try and find a way out of here."

"We could tunnel our way back to the real world," suggested Claudia.

"Really?!"

"No."

Pete scowled at her and crossed his arms to sulk for a while. Claudia sighed, stood up and went across to the crafting table, where she created two beds. She placed both and then moved back to Pete.

"If I could get us out of this I would," said Claudia. "But I have to have somewhere to start and I don't have anywhere to start. I think we just need to wait for the others."

"And in the meantime?" said Pete.

Claudia sighed. "We just keep surviving."

* * *

><p>When Claudia and Pete didn't get back the next day, Artie got concerned. He tried to contact them via Farnsworth to no avail and then he sent Myka and Helena to track them down. Three days had passed by the time they got to Maggie Wilson's house.<p>

"Missus Wilson?" said Myka when she opened the front door. "Have you seen our friends?"

"Your friends?" Maggie said, frowning. "They fixed Kyle's computer and went home we thought."

"They haven't been in contact," said Myka, voice quiet. "We thought maybe they were still here."

"Nope," said Maggie. "Not here. You can come and check if you want?"

"Yes please," said Myka and walked inside, Helena trailing behind her and being observant.

They checked Kyle's bedroom – the computer functioning but the screen turned off – and had a poke around to see if anything was out of place or wrong, but they couldn't find anything implying something bad had happened to Pete and Claudia.

"Perhaps they're on their way home," said Helena. "Or in a Farnsworth black spot sleeping..."

Myka frowned. "No, there's something wrong here," she said. "Claudia's practically bonded to the warehouse. She wouldn't stay away any longer than she had to."

"We should investigate further," said Helena. "Walk around, see if there's anything to indicate what's happened to them."

Myka nodded and on a whim held her hand out. Helena smiled softly and took it and Myka lead her back out of the house.

What was the worst that could happen in three days?

* * *

><p>Claudia shrieked as she fell and scrambled down cliff side into a forest, Pete hot on her heels. She skidded to a halt when a large man with an axe emerged from the trees in front of her.<p>

Claudia wasn't one for screaming, but at that moment she was screaming.

"Pete!" she shouted and he tossed her a flashlight. She aimed the beam at the axe murderer and he faltered, giving Pete ample time to raise his revolver and fire three shots into the murderer.

The murderer staggered back. Another shot and he fell down, disappearing and fading away. Pete grabbed Claudia's hand and they started running again, down through the trees and the forest and into the bright light of a lamp over a cabin.

"I can't keep doing this, Pete," said Claudia, bending double and leaning on her knees. "I can't. Three months. _Three months_. Why haven't they come for us yet?"

"I don't know," said Pete, basking in the light, the only safe area they'd found for a long time. "We need to get to the cabin. We'll be safe there."

"And if we're not?" said Claudia. "We're in Alan Wake. What's next? Call of Duty? I don't want to be shot in the face and teabagged!"

"Claud!" Pete squeezed the hand he'd not yet let go of. "We'll be okay. We've survived this long."

Claudia took a breath and nodded. "I'm just..."

"I know," he said gently. "I know, Claud. Three months is a long time to wait for rescue, but we'll be okay. We will. What's the worst that can happen?"

She looked at him. "No, don't ever say _that_," she said in time for the light to change. The doorway of the cabin behind them lit up and she looked at it. "Do we want to go through there?"

"Anywhere has to be better than here," said Pete, "right?"

She swallowed. "Right. Right, yeah." She let go of his hand and he found himself mourning the loss as they moved into the light and stepped through the doorway into the next game.


End file.
